Doing the math on deficit reduction

Biden's proposals don't do enough, but the GOP proposals go in the wrong direction

As I’ve written before, there’s something perverse about the fact that so much elite energy was expended 10 years ago on the search for a fiscal grand bargain when deficit reduction was macroeconomically inappropriate, but now that the time is right for deficit reduction, that energy has largely vanished.

House Republicans have sort of returned fiscal issues to the forefront with their debt ceiling tactics. But by limiting the discussion to domestic discretionary spending, they have — in important ways — really not. Last winter, I think the White House expected that the GOP would propose an all-cuts approach to fiscal policy that would inevitably feature cuts to Social Security and Medicare, since it’s obviously crazy to try to do a cuts-oriented approach to balancing the budget while exempting the two largest and fastest-growing programs. And then when Republicans did that, Biden would hit them hard with the reality that this is unpopular and counter-offer his own more balanced appro…